


This year’s love (had better last)

by Agf



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Fairy Tale Curses, M/M, Meet-Cute, Spells & Enchantments, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agf/pseuds/Agf
Summary: Shane’s given up on breaking his curse. After all, it’s not very likely he’ll bump into someone able to break it on Halloween - the one day he’s really visible - is it?
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 32
Kudos: 208
Collections: Skeptic Believer Book Club Hallowe'en Fic Exchange 2020





	This year’s love (had better last)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [punk_rock_yuppie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/gifts).



> My giftee requested: ‘[Ryan or Shane] was cursed many years ago to be invisible except for one day a year: Halloween’ which is, I think we can all agree, the best prompt ever. I did take some liberties with it, I hope it still scratches your itch!
> 
> (Title from the David Gray song)

**Halloween, 2017**

He’s… three or four drinks in, something sticky and candy-corn flavoured that coats his tongue and which he’d never _touch_ outside of this one holiday. There’s a string of paper Jack-o-Lanterns swaying above every door which get caught in Shane’s hair as he ducks from one room to the next, following the beat of the music, carried along by the press of unfamiliar bodies. 

Someone’s smoking in here, the funk of it hanging in the air, and when he sits down in the circle and pulls out a pipe a couple of people cheer. 

There’s more drinks, after that. Someone takes over the speakers and plays _Spooky Scary Skeletons_ on repeat until they finally give up the queue to someone else, squealing with laughter. After that it’s the _Time-Warp_ , the _Ghostbusters_ theme, and Shane tosses his head back and gives _The Addam’s Family_ as much gusto as the next guy. 

The candy-corn punch is really flowing, the weed has settled in and chilled him out, and when the house starts to empty and people split off into different rooms or move onto bigger parties, bigger houses, bigger _everything_ , Shane finds it easy to keel over into the cushions of one of the couches, and close his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. 

When he wakes up it’s light outside. He’s still half-clutching a solo cup, which is steadily soaking its contents into the bottom corner of his shirt. The drink inside looks shockingly yellow in the daylight. His clothes smell terrible. His shirt is damp, and when he stands up and stretches his shoes stick to the lino floor. 

His head doesn’t feel great either, what with the crick in his neck and the distinct thumping behind his eyes. 

Slowly, Shane pats himself down to check he hasn’t lost anything - phone, wallet, keys. He can smell coffee and hear laughter coming from the kitchen, and he picks his way there through the mess of discarded Halloween costumes and cups. 

“Hey,” he interrupts the small group gathered around the table. There’s a couple of the guys who invited him up last night, and a few others who are still wearing the remains of their costumes. Shane assumes at least some of these people are the owners of the house. He raises a hand and covers his mouth as he yawns. “Sorry for outstaying my welcome.” 

One of the women looks up from her mug, frowning in his direction. The others don’t even stop what they were doing - passing a phone around and laughing at something, probably a photo from the night before. 

“I fell asleep,” Shane explains, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, “I’ll get out of your hair now.” 

With some difficulty, the woman focuses on his face. “Huh?” she says, then, “Oh, right. Okay.” She turns back to the others. 

Their eyes slide right on by him. 

It's November 1st. 364 days until next Halloween. 

Shane leaves. 

*****

He doesn’t think about the curse much anymore. 

It’s pointless, is what it is. Bygones, spilled milk, that other phrase about pipe-dreams. He doesn’t have a way of contacting the person responsible. Shane knows, he’s tried. He spent the first year and a half _trying_ , after he’d woken up the day after Halloween with a hangover, a vague memory of an argument, and a face that none of his friends would look directly at, a voice they didn't seem to really hear. 

In practice, the curse meant basic invisibility. But that hadn’t been quite the words she’d used. No - what had those been exactly? _Shane Madej, I pronounce you unremarkable._

Unremarkable. 

He’d quickly found that hunting someone down is impossible when people forget what they’ve promised you as soon as you’re out of their eye line. That no one seemed to remember much about him the next day. That it took concerted effort to get anyone to listen to him at all, in the first instance, let alone to keep listening, to _help_. 

As far as Shane knows, she’s moved cities by now. Countries, even. Hell - she could be dead. Died, and left him the ghost.

He never found her, and by now he’s accepted that he never will. 

It’s a wild goose chase to try, and Shane only has one day a year on which to make it count. One day, and he can’t bear to spend it doing anything other than _living_ , as much as he can. 

He lives his day-to-day in a mask. It’s just that, instead of making him stick out, his makes him blend into the background. Every day. 

Except for Halloween. 

*****

**Halloween, 2018**

It’s seven PM, which means Shane has another five hours of visibility left. 

The good thing about Halloween is that everyone starts celebrating _early._ It's already getting rowdy. He’s been in this bar for an hour or so now, nursing a beer. Through the window, Shane has a great view of the horror house attraction someone has set up in one of the old renovations across the street. A sign out the front declares it: ‘One of the most haunted houses in America!’ 

Occasionally he watches giggling groups of teenagers push each other up the front path, buy their tickets, and disappear through the door. Then he starts an internal countdown. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, _ten, nine…_

A scream reaches all the way across the street, startling some passers-by. Shane watches the entrance for a few minutes more, until the group reappears, laughing and adrenaline-shaken, shouting to be heard over one another. 

_“It was behind you!”_

_“I was trying to run but you were in the way!”_

_“Where was I supposed to go?”_

He settles his tab at the bar and crosses the street, hands in his pockets. “Ticket for one,” he says to the zombie waiting out the front. 

“Sure you can handle it?” The guy asks. In another life, maybe Shane would have felt bad for him - this is undoubtedly not the work he’d been hoping for when he moved to LA with acting aspirations. Now, though, Shane thinks it seems fun. Chatting to people all night, trying to get under their skin. 

“I’ll give it my best shot,” he replies. 

He has to wait a few minutes, presumably so they can reset everything inside, and then he’s free to walk in through the darkened doorway. 

Immediately, Shane knows he’s made the right decision. He’s not afraid of anything in here, but he feels distinctly _watched_ _._

The novelty of that is a drug all on its own, better than adrenaline. 

A plastic bat swoops down from the ceiling on a wire and hits him in the face. Shane laughs as he swipes it away. He follows the hallway around to the living room, where a young woman in a lot of white makeup and some torn lacy clothing leaps out from behind a chair and rushes at him, screeching, “Get out of my house!” 

Shane holds his hands up in surrender. He doesn’t want to crush her confidence or anything, she really is selling it very well, so he holds his tongue and does his best to look suitably shaken.

There are a couple more rooms after that. Another sitting room-turned-playroom where a tinny lullaby plays over a hidden bluetooth speaker and another scare actor creeps in behind him and waves, silent and freaky. A bedroom with a rattling closet, someone’s hands creeping out from below the bed. More plastic bats tumble from the ceiling in the corridors. 

The kitchen is the grand finale. It’s set-up like an abbertoire, or a butcher’s shop. There are arms and legs dangling from hooks in the ceiling along with what Shane assumes is real, and not health-code compliant, sides of beef. 

Plastic sheeting leads a winding route through the room and towards the door. Shane knows he ought to follow it, but a strange urge overtakes him and he steps to one side instead, standing in the gloom by the wall. 

He has a great view of all the scare actors creeping in. They fan out, presumably to rush him from all sides, and pull up short when he isn’t in the middle of the room where he’s supposed to be. 

“Where--?” The ghost-woman in lace asks. She’s interrupted by Shane stepping forwards, arms out and an apology on his lips, but he doesn’t get a chance to make it. Instead, she startles, sets off a chain reaction of them all spinning around and flinching, and Shane lives the strangest moment of being the scariest thing inside the haunted house. 

“Shit, sorry, sorry,” he says. “I think I misstepped, I didn’t mean to-”

“Fuck dude, you scared the shit out of me,” the creepy baby says, half-laughing in relief. “We gotta set this room up better, my heart can’t take another round like that.” 

Shane feels bad, obviously, for being possibly the worst patron they’ll have to deal with this year, and tells them so. They wave him off, heading back to their markers, and he steps out into the chill of the evening rubbing at the back of his neck. 

Still. That moment, that shining, perfect moment, where all their eyes had snapped to him… Well. That might just carry him through to next year. 

*****

Shane tells himself he doesn’t think about the curse much anymore. 

That’s not entirely true. Or untrue. He doesn’t waste time thinking about it, but it’s still sitting behind everything he does, every decision he makes. 

It’s most visible in those snap decisions, where he suddenly doesn't care if he's _liked_ , he just wants to be _noticed._

The truth is, as the years roll on, caring about his image in those precious twenty-four hours - about being liked - that's too much legwork. Shane doesn't want to go out of his way to be an asshole, but he doesn't have time to make people _like_ him. So he has to settle for second best: trying to make them _remember_ him. 

(He pointedly doesn't think about what this means for his life in the long run. Doesn't think about how, if he can't get someone to like him in a night, he'll never get the other, scarier thing. The cure.) 

If anything, Shane thinks, it forces him to be more present than ever. There’s something almost freeing about it. After all, if someone calls him average on Halloween, that's on his own terms. 

*****

**Halloween, 2019**

A year is a long time to think, and Shane decides sometime around June that he can’t let himself become a thrillseeker every year. Especially not like last year. The thrill of being someone’s centre of attention - all that fear and shock turned on him - was electric, made him feel powerful and alive, but - god, that _has_ to be the start of a slippery slope. 

He falls back to his tried and tested method instead: find a house party, situate yourself in the middle of it. It’s the quickest way, he knows, to meet a range of people in the shortest amount of time. Especially when the drinks are flowing. Which they always are. 

Still, this year, Shane leaves just before midnight, like the worst kind of Cinderella. He's not going to turn into a scullery maid though. The depressing transformation here is just… back to himself. 

Which is enough. 

He’s walking for the train - not enough time to risk an Uber - hands shoved deep into his pockets to stave off the chill in the air, when someone barrels into his shoulder. 

It must not be midnight yet - usually people unthinkingly step around him - and the novelty of it, tiny thing though it is, is still… still something. Shane rubs at his shoulder, feeling brighter despite himself, and forces his chin up. 

"Sorry, man," a voice calls. Shane glances back, where a guy is holding out his hands apologetically. "Didn't see you there." 

"Don't worry about it," Shane replies. He's not wearing a watch. He has no idea how much time he has, and meets big brown eyes gratefully. This is probably the last direct eye contact he’s going to get for the year. "Happens all the time." 

"To you? No way," the stranger laughs. His eyes sparkle, limbs loose like he's drunk. A smudge of green paint stains his cheek. "I don’t believe it. You're like… Sasquatch size." 

Shane glances down at himself. “You know, maybe I should do that next year. Easy costume,” he says, instead of arguing his point. 

He gets another laugh for his trouble, one so full-body that the stranger has to clap a hand to his chest. “Ryan,” he says, thrusting the other hand forwards. 

“I- Shane.” 

“You should do it, the Bigfoot thing. I reckon it’s a wasted opportunity otherwise.” 

Shane glances up as drunken patrons start spilling out of the metro entrance, and Ryan gently extricates his hand. Shane would feel weird about having held it for so long, but it’s not as though Ryan will remember, really, in a couple of minutes. “I’ll think about it,” he promises.

“Have a good one, man,” Ryan says. He waves. 

Shane, struck by the weird novelty of the whole thing, waves back as he heads inside and through the barriers. 

The digital clock on the wall reads _12:03_. No one moves out of his way as he squeezes down to the escalator. 

When he glances back out of the entrance though, Ryan is still there, looking back at him, really _looking,_ a frown on his face. Shane's heart shudders over in his chest, but before he can open his mouth, raise a hand, Ryan’s already out of sight. 

*****

For 364 days of the year, Shane lives a relatively normal, albeit lonely, life. 

He has two jobs - one he’d kept, from the before-times, though he cut his hours when it became clear there was no point in doing otherwise. He’s never going to climb the ladder like he’d hoped, back when he’d joined. All his collaborative projects sit unfinished. Mostly he just slogs through video edits, making them as interesting as he can, and knowing that no matter what he submits, he'll be graded a solid three out of five at the end of year review. 

His other job is no more fun, but it does get him better people-watching opportunities. The Starbucks he works in attracts LA's most weird and wonderful, and Shane will take whatever distraction he can get. 

Not that he ever talks to them himself. No, no. Shane had learned the hard way that he can't do customer service anymore. Instead, he makes the coffees and takes out the trash, and on his birthday his colleagues get him a tie. It's brown. 

There are some considerable upsides, too. He never gets called on in meetings, for example. Never gets a disciplinary. No one comes to him for relationship advice. He doesn’t have to make awkward small talk around the water cooler, or volunteer for office potlucks and committees. 

Instead, he ghosts past the bad just as much as the good. Past the street preachers shouting about the end-of-days. Past bar-fights and aggressive customers. Past the campaigners outside the bus stop, never having to make excuses for why he doesn’t want to sign up to their well-intentioned newsletter. 

Winter is the worst time - the dead air between Halloween and the end of the year, every TV ad and billboard and movie geared around shared experiences. Every year, Shane gets just a little more tempted to drop out of society and move to a cabin in the woods somewhere. Somewhere where there’s no one to not-notice him, and no distinction between Halloween and every other day. 

It’s a nice fantasy, but he never does it. He doesn't want to wallow. He has things he enjoys, that keep him busy. Living for one day a year isn't ideal. But it's possible. 

He's proving that it's possible. 

*****

**Halloween, 2020**

Shane decides to take the metro uptown on his hunt for a bar to drink in. He could get an Uber, sure, but the thought of resting his feet for a moment longer isn’t a bad one. Part of him wants to experience the novelty of having people on the train actually move around him for once. 

Outside is cold, the kind that burns the inside of your lungs on the in-breath. Shane loves it; another part of the day that makes him feel overwhelmingly alive and _real._ It's the kind of thing that makes him momentarily, bizarrely grateful that his curse is lifted for one day in October, rather than, say, July. 

He pushes past a queue of patrons waiting to get ID checked outside a bar, most of whom are already looking a little worse for wear, and grins. Yeah. Tonight is going to be another good one. He can tell. 

"Hey, Sasquatch!”

Something in Shane's stomach swoops - like it does every time someone directly references him. 

“Shane!”

But this is bigger. Better. Because the person stalking towards him is someone he's met before. From another Halloween night. 

"Ryan?" 

Of course he remembers the name. Of course. It had been, god, _months_ before Shane could stop thinking about those eyes following him into the station. He's picked over every second of that interaction - Ryan's laugh, and the stupid smudge of face paint, and the warmth of his hand. Seeing him again, now, feels like something from a dream. Like Shane's conjured him here accidentally through sheer force of _wanting_ alone. 

"Remember me?" Ryan asks, holding out a hand. "I almost bowled you over… well, about here, probably, wasn’t it? Last year." 

"I- yeah, yeah! I remember," Shane says. He takes his hand. What he doesn't say, though it’s on the tip of his tongue, is: _‘You remember me too. Oh god, you remembered me’._

"Can I get you a drink?" Ryan asks. "I kind of feel like I owe you one." 

Maybe, pre-curse, Shane would have laughed off the suggestion that a tiny knock a whole year ago meant he was _owed_ anything. Now he only just resists the urge to grip Ryan's shirt so he can't lose him in the bustle of bodies and costumes. Shane knows himself, he knows he would say yes to anything Ryan suggested. He could have said, ‘I was planning on spending the evening drinking cheap whiskey in the Target parking lot, want to join?’, and Shane would say, ‘Sounds good!’ 

"Sounds good!" he says. 

Ryan’s smile is wide and white and familiar, somehow. Shane remembers to let go of his hand after a normal amount of time this go around. 

“There’s a good bar nearby, I actually know the dude who runs it,” Ryan says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. 

They make their way through the bustle of the crowds, Ryan coaxing him out of his shocked-and-stilted conversation with each terrible costume they point out to one another, and it’s only when they spot their third Marty McFly that Shane realises he hasn’t been paying attention at all to where they’re headed. 

“This is extremely LA of you, by the way,” he says. 

“What do you mean?”

“Knowing ‘the dude who runs the bar’?” Shane raises an eyebrow. “Come on.” 

Ryan looks like he isn’t sure if he should be offended or not. It’s a surprisingly cute expression, his nose all wrinkled at the top. “How is that ‘LA’?” he demands. 

“I’m from Chicago, I can just sense it. Some things are just _LA_ , Ryan. Knowing the bartender, that’s LA. Having appeared in a commercial once, LA.” Shane snaps his fingers. “Owning one of those beer coolers with the inbuilt speakers? LA.” 

“Okay, no, I object to that last one, that’s Florida all over.” 

Shane considers this as they walk. “Objection sustained,” he nods. “But my overall point still stands.” 

Ryan laughs. Shane can actually see it, a little puff of mist in front of his face. “Okay, I’ll bite. Tell me something Midwestern you do.” 

“I took the train here,” Shane replies, an eyebrow raised. 

“Fuck, that’s true. Okay.” Ryan sighs. 

He leads them down a quieter street, to a bar with a neon sign in the window and no queue. When they step inside, the wash of babbled conversation crests over them. It’s immediately comforting, even in its unfamiliarity. 

“Let me just go and warn him I’m here,” Ryan says, “Find a seat?”

Shane nods. He peels off his coat and tosses it over the back of a high-stool in the window, resting a hand on the one beside it, and watches as Ryan has a hurried conversation with a guy behind the bar. At one point they both glance over at him, and Shane feels caught-out, somehow, and turns to look out of the window instead. 

Ryan reappears with that same easy smile and two full glasses. 

“What is this?” Shane asks when Ryan hands one. It’s beer, that much is obvious. Or, more correctly, there’s beer somewhere in here - somewhere under the smell of tequila, and lime, and… god, that’s a lot of salt. 

“I didn’t ask,” Ryan replies. “It tastes surprisingly good, though. Cheers.” 

Shane obediently tips his glass forwards and watches Ryan take a drink. He doesn’t quite manage to suppress the way the first mouthful makes him shudder. 

He can see why - this stuff is _potent_. 

“What happened to the costume anyway, man?” Ryan asks while Shane coughs. “You promised me.” 

It takes a second for Shane to work out what he means, then he laughs. “In my defence, I didn’t think you’d be checking up on whether I followed through,” he says. “If I’d known about this, maybe I’d have made more of an effort.” He gestures between them. 

“Y’know, I wanted to ask you for a drink last time too, but you seemed in a rush,” Ryan says after a moment. He says it looking directly ahead, so Shane can’t read the look on his face to work out what he means by that, exactly. 

He swallows. 

“It, uh. It sort of seemed like you’d had a few already,” is what he settles on replying. He knows it’s not the right thing to say as soon as the words leave his mouth, but he can’t retract them. 

Luckily, Ryan just smiles over at him. “That’s true, I suppose,” he agrees. “Probably for the best.” 

They sit with the silence for a moment or two, before Shane cracks. “Should have asked for my number - at least then you could have chased up on the costume thing,” he says. 

He is so rusty at this. And Shane knows he was no Casanova to begin with. He wants to cringe at himself, at his own humiliating eagerness. 

“You’re right,” Ryan replies. “I should have.”

It’s unexpected. Shane doesn’t actually have a response ready for this kind of open interest. It feels strange; makes a weird combination of relief and regret settle like ash on his tongue. He tells himself that it hardly matters what they did last year. Ryan wouldn’t have contacted him anyway. This moment, here, is what matters. This moment, and not ruining it. 

So he just holds his beer out for Ryan to tap his own against, and hopes that the dim lighting of the bar covers the flush he can feel creeping down his neck. 

*****

There’s a jukebox in the back of the bar, and two drinks into that tequila-lime-salt-beer combo they set up camp beside it with a fistful of dollars and proceed to make several enemies of their fellow patrons. 

They also perform an incredible version of Britney Spears’ _Toxic_ , which Ryan maintains should earn them a free drink, and which his pal behind the bar seems to use as an excuse to coax them away and towards the pool table. 

There, Shane learns that Ryan is _competitive_. 

“You’re going down,” he says, seriously, chalking up the end of his cue. 

“It’s possible,” Shane agrees, “I haven’t played in a while.” 

He takes the first points easily. 

“You’re a liar,” Ryan informs him. He almost immediately sinks the white, and Shane fails entirely at hiding his amusement. 

Later, when Shane is finishing a tricky corner-shot - which he nails - he looks up to find Ryan scowling at him. “What?” 

“I think it’s the arms. They give you an unfair advantage.” 

Shane takes the shot, stands up, and drains the rest of his beer. “Maybe,” he says. “I think the ability to reach over the table is probably helping me out somewhat.” 

It’s a cheap shot. Ryan understandably glares at him for it, but it lasts only two seconds before he’s cracking up, soreness apparently forgotten. “Asshole,” he says. “You have to get the next round now.” 

“But I _won_.” 

“It’s Halloween! Those are the rules,” Ryan insists. Shane gets the sudden impression he might have a younger sibling, and makes a mental note to ask when he gets back from the bar. 

“If this makes you feel better for eating dirt, man…” he says. He fishes out his wallet, and swerves through the loose crowd to the bar, feeling Ryan’s eyes on him the whole time. 

Shane’s starting to feel like he’s on a date, which is crazy. He hasn’t dated in… god. He doesn’t even remember. He does know that it doesn’t happen like this, though. You don’t just _fall into_ a date by virtue of bumping into someone in the street. 

Still, the flutter in his chest keeps on fluttering, mindless of his logic. 

*****

It’s Ryan’s friend who spots him and comes over to take his order. The one who apparently runs the place. 

“Two more?” he asks. His hair is coloured silver, and it picks up all the oranges from the pumpkin fairy lights draped around the room. His name tag reads ‘Steven’ in blocky print. 

“Please.” Shane takes the opportunity to look around a bit more. It really is quite a strangely decorated place. He can see stacks of books by the register. Some of the furnishings are clearly brand new, some held together with wonky sewing, mismatched and old. 

Dotted around, on shelves and in prints on the walls, are what Shane would call ‘curiosities’. Little statues, postcards from various far-flung locales, symbols he doesn’t recognise, a few unlit candles under glass jars. 

“Do you believe in fate?” 

The interruption startles him and Shane turns back to find Steven holding out the beers he’d ordered, a small smile on his face. He looks entirely sincere. 

Shane considers the question for a moment, tapping a finger against the glasses. “I don’t think so,” he lands on. “I think we’re all responsible for our own actions.” 

Steven looks a little surprised, hiding it badly. “It could be both, don’t you think? We can decide things, and still be led in… certain directions.” He says this last part with one eyebrow raised significantly. 

Shane feels like he’s having one-half of a conversation he missed the beginning of. 

“I’m not really a ‘the world works in mysterious ways’ kind of guy,” Shane says. “I land more on ‘hey, things are chaos! Try your best!’, you know?”

“Steven, stop interrogating him.” Ryan appears by his side like he never left. Steven holds up his hands in surrender. 

“I wasn’t!” 

“He was a bit,” Shane says, winking, and gets a snort from Ryan for his troubles. 

“Come on, I found better seats,” Ryan says, and he drags Shane away with a hand on his shirt. 

“Are there-- There are chilli flakes in these,” Shane says when he hands Ryan his drink, holding them both up to the light. 

Ryan, for his part, doesn’t look surprised at all. “Are there?” he asks, already taking a mouthful and lounging back in the armchair he’s chosen like a King on a throne. “Well. Steve’s kind of a terrible barman.” 

That is, apparently, all he has to say about _that_. 

*****

Time passes in a blur, the way it does when you’re enjoying yourself, the way Shane never usually lets it on Halloween. 

More than once, as they sit and talk, he means to tell Ryan that it’s okay if he wants to leave - if he had other plans, that he doesn’t have to spend the entire holiday with Shane. He can never quite make himself voice the words. 

“Hey - let’s get some fresh air,” Ryan suggests, stretching out in his chair so his shirt rides up over his stomach. “I’m getting drowsy just sitting here.”

They pull their coats on and make their way out - a hand raised at Steven behind the bar. He gives them a thumbs up, like a supportive parent at a school sports tryout. 

Outside it’s even colder than before. Shane pushes his hands into his pockets and lets the fresh air burn through some of the haze that’d settled over him thanks to all the alcohol. There’s a smell in the air - frost, he thinks - that reminds him of home. 

“Fuck me, it’s cold,” Ryan complains, “Get over here.” He curls a hand around Shane’s jacket and hauls him in, huddling up beside him like a penguin. The bar is on the intersection of two streets, and Ryan tugs him into the little alley that connects them. 

Shane’s mouth feels quite dry, all of a sudden. 

Out of sight of the street, Ryan presses him back against the brick wall. Slow, careful. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” he says. Then he’s loosely gripping Shane’s chin and using it to guide his face down, down until he’s close enough for Ryan to kiss. 

He holds them there a moment, uncertain, and Shane’s the one who closes the distance between them. 

Because-- Because he _wants to_. Wants to more now than he remembers ever wanting it before. Wants it not just because the clock is ticking down, the window of opportunity closing, but because this is Ryan, and he’s been looking at Shane with those dark, dark eyes of his all night. 

Because he’ll regret _not_ doing it, but not for the reasons he’s regretted other missed Halloween-trysts - because he’s starting to feel like he might regret every moment he doesn’t bend where Ryan pulls him, actually. 

Ryan tastes of beer and lime, and there's a sharp bite of salt on his bottom lip when Shane swipes his tongue over it gently. His hands are warm but his fingertips are cold, tucked against Shane’s jaw. 

Shane doesn’t get to do this much anymore, so he’s not sure if it’s inexperience or _Ryan_ that makes it feel like the ground swoops beneath his feet, the world shifting out of and into focus quick as a heartbeat. 

"That's it," Ryan says when leans back, encouraging. He looks at Shane with a gaze that's almost heavy, pinning him with it, eyes roving from his lips to his forehead and back again.

"Is there something… on my face?" Shane asks. 

"Not for much longer," Ryan replies. Which is, sure, objectively weird, but Ryan's a bit of a weird dude, Shane is getting that vibe from him, and they’re both less than sober. He scrubs at his cheek anyway, and Ryan grins wider before he kisses him again. 

“I live nearby,” he says, a handful of minutes later. 

“Oh?”

“Do you want to come over?”

Again, Shane thinks he would go wherever Ryan pointed him. He pulls his hand free from where it has migrated inside Ryan’s open jacket, drops it down instead to his hand, squeezes his fingers. “Yeah, I do.” 

Ryan smiles again. “This way.” 

*****

It takes a while to make the short walk back to Ryan’s apartment, but only because they keep distracting one another. 

Ryan can’t seem to resist the call of every dark corner - though Shane suspects this is as much about stealing his warmth as it is about stealing kisses. Shane delights in tucking cold fingers against Ryan’s stomach, his back, his neck, anywhere that makes him duck and curse, laughing that whole-body laugh. 

Shane’s been riding some kind of high since the first kiss. What should have been… God, he doesn’t even know. A drink? A night of bar-hopping, like every year? _Something..._ It feels different now. Feels like something unfinished is stretching between them, making him itchy for more. 

Shane doesn’t- he doesn’t get to do this much, and Ryan is a ball of energy, so close as to be blinding. 

“Wait, I gotta,” Ryan breaks himself off, fumbling with the keys to his apartment as Shane presses up close behind him. 

The door swings open finally, _finally_. Shane doesn’t get a good look at anything before Ryan’s herding him back, through a door, hitting a lightswitch and pawing at Shane’s coat until he shrugs it off and abandons it to the carpet. 

The room, it quickly becomes apparent, is Ryan’s bedroom. There are classic film posters on the walls and a messy stack of exercise equipment in one corner. Shane laughs breathlessly as Ryan backs him up against the bed (unmade) until he falls. 

"Wait - wait right here," Ryan orders. He disappears from the room, and Shane takes the opportunity to unlace his shoes. When Ryan reappears he's holding a glass of something pink and glittery. 

"What is that?" Shane asks, and then, "I'm good." His head is getting woozy, and he doesn’t want to forget this. This has to last him, in glorious technicolor, through the rest of the drab days until next year. It would be terrible to get so wasted he loses part of his only day. 

Part of _this_ day, with Ryan. 

"Just try it," Ryan insists. There’s a set to his chin, like he isn’t going to back down until Shane acquiesces. “Steve made me promise we’d try it.” 

It occurs to Shane that this could easily be the start of an organ-harvesting operation. Ryan doesn’t look like the kind of guy to have a scalpel hidden somewhere on his person, but then, does anyone? He eyes the drink suspiciously. 

"It's just cotton candy, man," Ryan rolls his eyes. He takes the glass back, gulps a huge mouthful, then hands it back to Shane. 

Slowly, he takes a sip. It's awful. It's so sweet, clogging up his mouth immediately. He almost coughs as soon as he swallows.

Ryan, however, makes a wounded sound. Shane looks up to find him watching him, eyes bright and lovely as they had been the first time they'd met. He looks unmoored by something, and Shane glances back at the drink in his hand, slowly adding two and two together. "Do you have… a thing? For people drinking?" He asks. 

The expression cracks as Ryan frowns. "No? What the- no! Jesus christ." 

“Hey, I’m not yucking your yum,” Shane says, holding out his palm. Ryan snags the drink from his other hand and sets it down on the cluttered dresser without another glance. Then he climbs up into Shane’s lap and pulls him in for another kiss - bitingly hard, chasing away the flavour of cotton candy with his tongue. 

“Don’t think that proved your point,” Shane points out when Ryan sits back, breathing harder. 

“Shut up,” Ryan replies. “Kiss me again.” 

Shane does. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit like that, just kissing. It’s long enough for Shane to grow to love the demanding way Ryan directs his head with a hand on his cheek - though, honestly, he likes it straight away. It’s long enough for them to have to pause several times, breathing heavy against each other’s mouths, and Shane catches the curl of a grin with his lips. 

He could do this for hours. Would, if only he had the hours to spare. 

And the willpower. 

Once Ryan starts rocking down against him though, Shane’s willpower is well and truly shot. Gone. Kaput. He drops his hands from Ryan’s hips to the slope of his lower back, guiding him as he grinds down. It feels like every time Shane got off at a college party - messy, clumsy, his dick pressing insistently at the seam of his zipper. 

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Ryan says. His voice sounds lower than before, and Shane hides his pleased expression against his jaw, just pressing a feather-light kiss to the scruff there. 

“What’s that?” 

“I’m thinking we could probably do this… with less clothes.” Ryan leans back, and the trail of his fingertips down from Shane’s neck over the slope of his spine makes him shiver. “Thoughts?”

Shane nods seriously. “Strong argument,” he says, already slipping his hands under Ryan’s obscenely tight dress shirt. Those poor buttons. “I concur.” 

“I _concur?_ ” Ryan snorts. He lifts his arms all the same, letting Shane push the shirt up and fighting from the inside to get it over his head when the buttons get caught in his hair. 

With every piece of clothing he removes, Ryan seems to shine brighter in the gloom of the bedroom. Shane can’t seem to stop touching him. He barely registers that Ryan’s undressing him just as efficiently, too busy pressing his lips to a shoulder, rubbing his thumb along a hipbone, watching a muscle in Ryan’s stomach jump and flex when he moves. 

Shane doesn’t remember it ever feeling this easy, even before. 

Ryan has everything so _handled_ , Shane barely has to think at all - certainly not about anything other than how good this feels, how perfect Ryan looks, how much he wants him. Wants to touch, taste, _see_. 

Shane ends up sprawled out on the bed, naked, Ryan hovering above his legs. 

Every drag of bare skin on skin feels electrified, somehow. Shane curls one hand around Ryan’s thigh and uses it to pull him closer, further up his own body, so that when Ryan leans down onto his elbows to kiss him, their cocks align. The heat of him, the silky drag of his skin, even dry, is enough to have Shane’s blood thrumming faster. 

Ryan rolls his body like a dancer, grinding them together, his mouth so close that Shane can feel his breaths over his own lips. It’s all he can do to hold onto him, fingertips pressed into skin, and meet the sparkle of his eye. 

A curl comes loose from the rest and flips onto Ryan’s forehead as he moves, grunting. A shiver passes from Shane’s head down the length of his spine. He has just enough presence of mind left to think, _I will remember this sight forever._

“Fuck,” Ryan chokes out. “God, I wanted to take my time, but I’m not- I can’t-” 

“Me neither,” Shane admits. His head is swimming with it all. “It’s been a while.”

Ryan looks up at him with an expression Shane’s muddled brain can only describe as _fond_. “I’ll make it good,” he says, like an oath. He leans away then, and Shane mourns the loss of contact, but Ryan only goes as far as the bedside table. He leans back with lube in his hand. 

He drizzles some out over his fingers and meets Shane’s eye before he gets a hand around them both as much as he can. The hot squeeze of his fingers, slick and wet, makes Shane groan. 

His fingers are clenched tightly enough around Ryan’s thigh that it must be starting to hurt, and he drops his hand to the sheets instead. “It _is_ good,” he says on a gasp. “Ryan, it’s good, you’re good.” 

He seems to be trying to kill Shane, spreading the lube over them both with a tight hold, root to tip, shifting in small increments against him all the while, like he can’t help himself. 

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane hisses, encouragingly. 

In response, Ryan loosens his grip. He moves to shift his hips back, then forward, testing, thrusting into the curved-C of his hand, along the length of Shane’s dick. 

“Oh, yeah,” Ryan says. He lets out a little breath of laughter. “Yeah, this is- Working.” 

Shane tilts his hips up as much as he can in encouragement. Ryan’s dick and his hand work in perfect counterpoint. Each thrust into his hand presses them so close together. Each time, the head of Ryan’s cock bumps up against the spot on the underside of Shane’s dick that makes him feel like someone’s pressed a lightning rod against his nervous system. 

“Ryan,” he says again, helpless. Already, he’s so, so close to coming undone. 

“God--” Ryan chokes out. It’s all the warning Shane gets before he’s coming - though he wouldn’t miss it, he hasn’t been able to tear his eyes from Ryan in what feels like hours. 

As his orgasm hits him, Ryan goes tense all over, only his hips and hand still stuttering in a brutally fast pace. His come paints his hand and Shane’s stomach, and Ryan doesn’t drop it away. He just uses it to slick Shane up even more, even while he must still be feeling the aftershocks. 

It’s so much. Shane is on the trigger’s edge, has been walking that edge for an age, it feels like. Something in his stomach is uncoiling, loose and hungry, and he presses his head back against the sheets and pants, overwhelmed by the sight of Ryan’s hand moving over him. 

“Come on, come on, let me look at you,” Ryan says. His hand is tight and hot as he jerks Shane off, holding him down with his thighs so Shane can hardly move, can’t lift his hips to fuck up the way he’s dying to, has to just lie there and take it. 

“Ryan--” he chokes out a third time, digging his feet into the mattress, and Ryan’s answering grin is all-teeth. 

“Show me,” he says. 

Shane does. 

The orgasm seems to knock something out of him. He chokes out a sound that he only thinks to bite back at the very last moment, eyes glazing over with the feel of it. The feel of Ryan’s hands on him, the weight of his body on Shane’s legs, the weight of his eyes as he watches, pleased. 

There’s electricity in Shane’s _hair follicles_. The earth does that swooping thing again, in time with the clench-release of his stomach. 

When he comes down he’s panting. Ryan lifts himself up and tosses him some tissues, and then he’s pulling on his boxers and tugging the sheets up over Shane’s legs. 

“You gonna stay a while?” Ryan asks. He looks hopeful. Shane has him pegged as a hugger - which he didn’t used to like, especially not post-sex, when everyone’s sticky. Now, the idea tugs at some other part of him, like Ryan hasn’t touched enough already, and he has to push his hands into Shane’s chest and dig out all of these little nuggets to hold them to the light. 

Speaking of which - Shane looks out the window. He can still hear a lot of noise from outside - the streetlights are still on. He has time. His legs feel suspiciously jelly-like. “I could stay a while.” 

Ryan stretches and flips through his phone while Shane cleans up and tugs his underwear back on, but as soon as he’s horizontal again Ryan is on him, tucked up behind him like an octopus. For the next hour, all they do is take it in turns passing the phone back and forth, pulling up stupid videos that make them laugh. Shane gets a fifteen minute-long lecture about the queue mechanics of Disneyland. Ryan suffers through some extremely niche vine compilations. 

It’s nice. 

Still, Shane _knows_ he should get up and leave. 

He knows it'll feel worse in the morning if he doesn't, when he wakes up and Ryan's eyes slide right past him. He's been there before, in the early days, and he'd sworn he wouldn't do it again.

It’s not worth it. Not even for some extra time spent in the fantasy that this could mean more than just one night of fun. 

The thought of Ryan waking up and looking through him is bad enough. The reality will hurt much, much more. 

When he shifts to move though, Ryan tightens his grip around Shane's middle, holding him down. “Don’t,” he mumbles, lips against Shane’s shoulder. Just that - one word, and Shane’s resolve crumbles completely. 

_Okay_ , Shane thinks. _I’ll just have to deal with it_. 

He lets himself enjoy the feeling. 

*****

"Morning sleepyhead." 

Shane cracks open one eye. Ryan's sitting on the bed with his phone in one hand and the light from the half-open blinds slanting over his face. He looks lit up from the inside, all orange-glow. 

Shane glances around expectantly, but there's no one else in the room with them. 

Ryan is talking to him. 

It's _November 1st_ , and Ryan is _talking to him._

Shane sits bolt upright. 

"What?" He says, then, again, "What?" He fumbles for his phone, and when the screen lights up it says _9:47, November 1 2020._ Shane shuts it off. Then turns it on again to check. He looks back up at Ryan, at Ryan’s eyes, now watching him warily. 

Focused on him. 

“Hey man, it’s alright. It’s broken, it’s gone,” Ryan says. He presses one hand to Shane’s shoulder, like you’d calm a skittish horse. “You’re okay.” 

“You can see me,” Shane says. He doesn’t phrase it as a question, but it is one. Of course it is. His voice shakes and cracks straight down the middle of the sentence. _See me._

“I can see you, Shane.” 

“But it’s not- It’s not possible- I, there’s…” Shane can’t make himself say it out loud. Part of him is worried, is _terrified_ , that if he voices it his body will remember, or the world will remember, and Ryan’s eyes will slide past him again. He’ll get out of the bed with a frown and wonder what he was sticking around for in the first place. He’ll give Shane a polite kind of wave, and that will be that. 

Shane presses further into Ryan’s patting hand, and snaps his mouth closed. 

For his part, Ryan seems prepared to keep patting Shane’s shoulder until he gets a hold on himself enough to stop shaking. He looks kind of awkward, but when Shane sits up, as if to move away, Ryan frowns and moves with him. 

“Sorry,” Shane says, eventually. His throat feels raw and hot with all the emotion he’s keeping trapped in there. 

“Don’t apologise. It’s a lot. I should have said something. But I didn’t want to tell you I was trying, you know? In case it didn’t work,” Ryan says. He screws his mouth up. “Guess I should have expected the shock.” 

It’s only then that Ryan’s words really start to filter through at all. _I was trying. It’s gone. It’s broken._ Shane looks up at him again, finally, _finally_ , and takes in the gentle slope of his shoulders, the fuzz of hair along his jaw, the pleased look in his eye that he just can’t hide. 

Shane thinks back to Ryan’s hands on his face, waiting to see if Shane would kiss him. To the heat of his eyes on him in bed. _Let me see you._ Then back even further to the look in his eye last year when Ryan had watched him leave, _after midnight_. 

He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "You-- You saw..?" 

"The curse? Yeah. Big one, not pretty," Ryan says, like this isn’t a revelation. He waves a hand in front of his face. "Like you gave everyone else blinkers to wear." 

“But you- How did you…?”

"We tag-teamed it. Steven and me. _'_ _Something strong to blast through the veneer,’_ " Ryan says, like he’s reciting something. "That’s the best way, when you’re not sure. Just come at it from all corners; sugar, spice…" 

"Something nice?" Shane finishes, his brain no longer connected to his mouth. He might still be hyperventilating. He can’t feel his lungs to be able to tell. 

"Well, you didn’t have any complaints."

Shane wets his lips, and the remembered taste of sugar makes him shiver. What was that Ryan had said, sugar, spice… That drink with the cotton candy, the one with chilli in it. The sharp lime wedges and salt earlier on. 

Oh, god. 

"Did you undo my curse with potion cocktails?" Shane can feel his mouth hanging open. He leaves it as is. 

"And the making out," Ryan reminds him, like Shane could have _forgotten_. "But yes, the drinks were the backup option." 

Shane laughs. He laughs until the manic energy stops making his hands shake quite so hard, until Ryan probably thinks he's cracked. Then he rubs his face, his wet eyes. "Explains why they were so bad,” he says. 

"Was it insulting someone that got you into this situation in the first place?" Ryan asks, idly, but he ruins the effect by grinning, by moving even closer. 

How is he real? He looks like a damn dream, even with his curls sticking up in different directions from the back, where he’d slept. Shane wants to reach out and flatten them. 

He hasn’t woken up next to someone like this in years. 

Like he can sense the thought, Ryan shifts closer and tilts his head in an invitation. Shane pushes his fingers through soft hair, gently tugs at the knots, smooths the unruly curls back into place. His heart is beating double-time behind his ribs. 

Slowly, Ryan's words filter through into Shane’s brain. "I’m only insulting the drinks," Shane promises. "Everything else is just... awe. I'm awed by you." _And the making out._ Christ. 

He reaches for Ryan's hand and pulls him in closer still, dragging him down into a pile atop the bed, half on top of Shane's body when he falls back. "Is this okay? Are you- I don't want to assume you're..." 

"Oh my god," Ryan interrupts him. He hitches himself up higher, "Do I look like I don't want to be here?" He angles his hips and presses his dick against Shane’s hip, a slow grind. 

“Just checking.” 

In the moments he’d allowed himself to be weak, to imagine what he’d do if he ever broke the curse, Shane had imagined doing all kind of things: busking in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, getting his hair cut by a professional, getting tattooed, joining a theatre troupe just to stand in the middle of the stage. 

He hadn’t imagined this - turning his face to kiss Ryan slow and grateful while he slides his hand into his boxers. In hindsight, this was clearly a massive oversight on his part. 

“You don’t have to,” Ryan says, once Shane drops his head back to breathe. Even his blood feels more alive, fizzy like champagne as it pulses in his ears. 

“I know. There are just a lot of endorphins in my body right now,” Shane says, “I could go for a few extra.” 

Ryan snorts and lifts himself on one elbow so he can reach Shane’s mouth, helpfully pushing his boxers down with his free hand to give Shane more room to work. 

A banging at the door interrupts them, and Shane stills his hand, fingers still curled loosely around Ryan’s dick. 

"Did it work?" A voice calls through the wood. Shane recognises it immediately as Steven’s. Steven, who apparently lives here too. "Did you guys kiss?" Steven adds. 

"Steven!" Ryan shouts, looking mortified at the interruption, at the exact same time that Shane yells back, "Yep!" 

He cracks up at the look on Ryan's face, betrayed, and then the door's swinging open and Shane's yanking his hand back like Ryan's crotch is on fire. 

Steven catches all of this and flushes even redder than Shane does. He turns his face pointedly towards the wall, wringing his hands together in front of him. “I- oh. Um. I’m glad it worked,” he says, sounding strangled. “Do you want coffee? Tea? I can make a special pot.” 

Coffee sounds great, honestly, but Shane’s still reeling from ‘magic lime beer’. He eyes Steven suspiciously. 

“What’s special about it?” he asks, glancing between him and Ryan, who just rolls his eyes. 

“Oh! It’s not- this will just be normal,” Steven promises. “I usually ask before, before I do the weird stuff.”

He looks like he wants to leave so, so badly. Shane takes pity on him. “Coffee would be great, thank you,” he says, and Steven’s gone almost before the words are out of his mouth. 

Ryan tucks his head into the crook of Shane’s shoulder. “Close the damn door!” he shouts, muffled. 

The door slams. Shane, distracted by Ryan pressing open-mouthed kisses down his neck, hardly notices. 

“So you’d already told him about me?” he checks. 

Ryan nips at a patch of skin. “I had a year to wait,” he says. “He might have known in advance.”

How else can Shane respond to that, except to pull him up and kiss him again, soft and sweet as he can?

This feeling is new. Or not _new,_ but unfamiliar. It’s been a long time since Shane had anything to feel hopeful about. But Ryan is solid and warm against his front, and he touches Shane like he’s been waiting a long time for this too. Like he maybe understands, a little. 

So Shane thinks - even tentatively _hopes_ \- he might have time to get used to being the centre of Ryan’s attention. Still, he’s going to make sure he lives every second of the days they get, just in case, eyes on Ryan’s eyes. 

*****

**Epilogue**

**Halloween, 2021**

Shane gets used to Ryan snapping pictures of him at random moments of the day. 

Sometimes he’ll be at work, and his phone will buzz, and it’ll be a picture of him, bleary-eyed over his morning cereal. 

Or else he’ll be getting ready for bed, and Ryan will send him a picture of the back of his own head, clearly taken as Shane climbed into his Uber thirty-minutes earlier. 

He has a whole folder of them on his phone. None of them are flattering. Some - including the ‘corn dogs at Disneyland’ series - are actively gross. But he can’t delete them. They make him smile. They’re a helpful little reminder, stored away on their text chain, no words needed. 

Still, he glances up when he hears the shutter going off again, halfway into his Halloween costume. “Seriously?” Shane asks when he looks over at the door. His pants are still only halfway up his thighs, and Ryan looks far too pleased with himself as he taps something on his keyboard. 

“It’s a good look,” he says, unrepentant. “It looks like the awkward aftermath of a plumber porn video.” 

“Those two sentences do not go together,” Shane points out. He finishes pulling his pants up and shoves his arms into the sleeves, which are too short for him, then pulls the zipper. 

The ghostbuster uniform looks much better on Ryan. 

“I still think you should have been a ghost,” Ryan says, “you could have worn some face paint, a nice sheet…” 

“I thought we both agreed that a big white cape is probably not a good look for me,” Shane replies. “Another year, another terrible costume recommendation from Bergara.” 

“Excuse you! I am the Halloween King.” 

“No, no,” Shane grins. He crosses the room and snags Ryan’s phone from his hand. “Halloween is _my_ holiday, baby. Buckle up and get ready. I actually know this great haunted house you’re going to _love…_ ” 

They take another picture before they go - the both of them this time, smiling into the camera. It might just be Shane’s favourite yet. 


End file.
